In England there was a particular problem with a particular pill being used to suicide by overdose. The pill manufacturer switched from selling it by the bottle to selling it in those little individually sealed sheets that are a PITA to open. Suicide rate immediately dropped. Apparently a great many suicides are impulsive and if given a little more time to think about it they will back out.

And yet the UK's suicide rate is about in line with the US's (11.8 per 100,000 vs. 12.0, per Wikipedia), despite the lack of easily-obtainable firearms.

In England there was a particular problem with a particular pill being used to suicide by overdose. The pill manufacturer switched from selling it by the bottle to selling it in those little individually sealed sheets that are a PITA to open. Suicide rate immediately dropped. Apparently a great many suicides are impulsive and if given a little more time to think about it they will back out.

jdreyer wrote on Feb 1, 2013, 16:27:As soon as I see a large cohort study demonstrating definitively that games (fantasy) lead to crime in reality, I'll start to believe it. But this article is simply conjecture.

The fact is ALL violent crime has been on a steady downward trend for the past 20 years, while games have exploded exponentially in usage time and popularity during the same time period. EDIT: Draugr beat me to it.

The difference of the present vs 10 years ago is the same as it is 10 years ago vs 100 years ago. The number of guns and the availability of them. There's almost 1 gun for every citizen today, and we are pumping out thousands of them on a daily basis. I don't believe our society is any more violent than in the past, but there are hundreds of thousands of more guns available every year. That means easier access for kids, mentally disturbed individuals and criminals. Although we have background checks, they do nothing in the case of personal sales, gun shows, craigslist, or thefts, because no one tracks them after the purchase.

Right, despite this, all violent crime is on a downward trend, that is decreasing over time. Add in some gun control and it will decrease further.

jdreyer wrote on Feb 1, 2013, 16:27:As soon as I see a large cohort study demonstrating definitively that games (fantasy) lead to crime in reality, I'll start to believe it. But this article is simply conjecture.

The fact is ALL violent crime has been on a steady downward trend for the past 20 years, while games have exploded exponentially in usage time and popularity during the same time period. EDIT: Draugr beat me to it.

The difference of the present vs 10 years ago is the same as it is 10 years ago vs 100 years ago. The number of guns and the availability of them. There's almost 1 gun for every citizen today, and we are pumping out thousands of them on a daily basis. I don't believe our society is any more violent than in the past, but there are hundreds of thousands of more guns available every year. That means easier access for kids, mentally disturbed individuals and criminals. Although we have background checks, they do nothing in the case of personal sales, gun shows, craigslist, or thefts, because no one tracks them after the purchase.

InBlack wrote on Feb 1, 2013, 10:52:WAKE THE FUCK UP? Do you really think that handguns and rifles will protect you from armored APCs, gunship helicopters, micro drones, tanks, and the whole combined might of the US military if push comes to shove???

It's called asymmetric warfare, you ignoramus.

I'd call it: "The Alamo".

Two marines know a few things about guns, killing and training. What they know nothing about is psychology and sociology. These are the issues you are talking about when linking long-term psychological effects of violent media to negative behavior from said media. These guys are about as much an expert on the causes of gun violence as I am on what it was like to be a slave before the Civil War. Nice try, NRA.

eh, read the article, I tend to stay away from huffpo anyway. But, that being said, most of the common sense stuff has been covered here. marines don't think for themselves. They didn't do themselves any favors by saying they didn't touch a gun until the core. oh well. Move along.

Grew up around guns my whole life. Was taught to respect the power they have and respect human life. Also have played games almost my whole life, as have most of my peers.....if games are such a factor - so many more would be killers.

InBlack wrote on Feb 1, 2013, 10:52:WAKE THE FUCK UP? Do you really think that handguns and rifles will protect you from armored APCs, gunship helicopters, micro drones, tanks, and the whole combined might of the US military if push comes to shove???

jdreyer wrote on Feb 1, 2013, 16:37:This, but there's an even deeper, darker secret behind the second amendment. It really had nothing to do with creating citizen-soldiers to fight foreign invaders (and the founders never imagined "government tyranny"), and every thing to do with fighting slave insurrections:

Don't care about guns. Don't own one, don't care to own one. I think both sides are mostly wrong, but the pro-gun side is probably more wrong. While I don't think outlawing guns would do anything (at least not in a single election cycle), I would love to see rednecks and their "well regulated" militias with their peashooters go toe to toe with an M1 Abrams.

As it is though, through the power of lobbyists (the NRA) we just saw a class of little kids get mowed down and nothing is going to be done to even try to keep it from happening again. I guess that's the price of living in the greatest country on earth. Frankly I'm a little desensitized to it all with the current status quo. So let's go for it. I'm for gun control, with extreme prejudice. It's win-win for entertainment. I say it's time to end the stalemate. Register yourself and your weapon with a WELL REGULATED militia or hand it over. Round up all the guns and let Billy Bob with his modified AR-15 defend his "anything goes" interpretation of the 2nd amendment against an Apache Longbow attack helicopter. Since 'compromise' doesn't seem to be in their vocabulary. At least we wouldn't be seeing little kids being sacrificed for the 2nd Amendment for a change.

InBlack wrote on Feb 1, 2013, 10:52:WAKE THE FUCK UP? Do you really think that handguns and rifles will protect you from armored APCs, gunship helicopters, micro drones, tanks, and the whole combined might of the US military if push comes to shove???

Payton explained that the founders added the Second Amendment in part to reassure southern states, such as Virginia, that the federal government wouldn’t use its new power to disarm state militias as a backdoor way of abolishing slavery.

This is pretty well-documented history, thanks to the work of Roger Williams School of Law professor Carl T. Bogus. In a 1998 law-review article based on a close analysis of James Madison’s original writings, Bogus explained the South’s obsession with militias during the ratification fights over the Constitution. “The militia remained the principal means of protecting the social order and preserving white control over an enormous black population,” Bogus writes. “Anything that might weaken this system presented the gravest of threats.” He goes on to document how anti-Federalists Patrick Henry and George Mason used the fear of slave rebellions as a way of drumming up opposition to the Constitution and how Madison eventually deployed the promise of the Second Amendment to placate Virginians and win their support for ratification.

As soon as I see a large cohort study demonstrating definitively that games (fantasy) lead to crime in reality, I'll start to believe it. But this article is simply conjecture.

The fact is ALL violent crime has been on a steady downward trend for the past 20 years, while games have exploded exponentially in usage time and popularity during the same time period. Most crime is perpetrated by youths, the same group with which gaming is popular. Correlation is not causation, but if there was a connection, wouldn't you expect to see crime maintain its levels or go up, not go down?

There are other countries where people play games in similar amounts to the USA, yet have no gun violence. Japan, for example, has between 4-10 gun-related deaths per year. USA has over 12,000. Why? Japan has national comprehensive GUN CONTROL. It's really that simple.

Only had to read the first paragraph to know he is pulling crap out of his ass. American society is not more violent now then before, as a matter of fact it is generally less violent now then it's ever been in its history. It's only perceived as being more violent and that can be totally leveled at the medias continuous fixation on the worst aspects of the society and the simple fact that we live in a world of instant communication. Everybody, everywhere, knows instantly every bad thing that happens to everyone, everywhere. I finally gave in and watched A Clockwork Orange for the first time a few weeks ago. One thing really hit home with me about that movie, it's not a commentary on society, it's a commentary on how society views itself. Of course it also doesn't help when every gun lobby and gun worshipper in the country is ramping up that fear and misconception with every word they utter.

As for his very simplified view of how soldiers are trained to kill as an example of how people are desensitized to killing and how that relates to video games, he is way off base... and even contradicts his own theory by stating that the military moved up to soldiers shooting each other with paint guns, why, because obviously the fake 2D targets simply didn't cut it... they had to ramp up to real people shooting other real people. He relates a few very small examples in a soldiers life when in reality a soldiers training (conditioning) is a 24\7 endeavor in every last single aspect of their life, and the military has been perfecting that ever since WW2. Soldiers are conditioned from day one to eliminate the concept of why, only the how is important to their thinking process. Also his shoot to kill numbers from WW2, nam and Afganistan are pure out of his ass fiction... which also does not take into account draft soldiers vs voluntary soldiers.

The simple truth of the matter is the USA has a much higher 'death from violence' rate as compared to the rest of the 'first world' countries because americans have access to guns like the rest of us have access to pop. All other countries have problems with mental health, unemployment, domestic problems... they all watch the same movies, play the same games... the only difference is in almost every place BUT the United States when someone does lose it they don't have a gun right there ready and loaded.

Darks wrote on Feb 1, 2013, 09:18:No matter what they do, Gun control will never fix this. We are all engrained with killing, this all goes back to Cain killing his brother with a rock. We are all dammed in this way. Someone will always find a tool for the job, whether it be a gun or a knife or axe. Taking away guns will only make them look elsewhere for the weapons, and all this is doing is promoting a black market for weapons.

One needs to look at Chicago as the prime example of why tough gun laws don't do anything to curb crime. When you take the guns away from law abiding citizens the criminals will be the only ones with them, and liberal utopias like Chicago and Detroit are perfect examples.

The problem with Detroit is massive poverty, unemployment, and lack of police. The Detroit Police Department has shrunk from over 2000 down to less than 1400 in the past 10 years.

Gun control needs to be nationwide. NJ has some of the strictest gun control, but still lots of gun crimes. Something like 40% of guns used in NJ crimes were purchased in southern states with lax gun laws.

nin wrote on Feb 1, 2013, 15:04:I actually had it bork a machine or two, and never used it again...

It warns you a hundred times about that, and like you're saying, for good reason.

I use it when I am at my wit's end. When I've gone through the registry shredding things on my own to no avail and want to essentially take a buzzsaw to it and, if it destroys the OS install so be it, I'm inches from reinstalling anyway.